Touch Paint
by antepathy
Summary: Drift/Wing, tactile. Wing introduces Drift to some of Crystal City's treats.


R  
IDW  
Wing/Drift  
tactile, lots and lots of tactile

"Anything catch your eye?" Wing slipped up next to Drift, who was staring into a shop window.

"Not even sure what half that stuff is," Drift muttered, staring at the little colored shapes, artistically arranged on elegantly cut bits of metal foil that he didn't even know the name of either.

"Candy," Wing said with that bemused half-smile he so often wore around Drift, as though Drift's incomprehension was something amazing.

"Candy." Right. So they all fled the war, scurrying like cowards, abandoning Cybertron, with science and useless art and now even more useless things: candy.

"Don't tell me you've never had candy before."

Drift glowered. "Fine. I won't." But he hadn't.

He knew what was coming, could practically pace it out himself: Wing's strong hand closing over his wrist, the jingle of a chime over the door as he dragged Drift into the shop, until he was surrounded by the confections.

"What shall we try first?" Wing said, peering eagerly through a glass case at tiers upon tears of the small candies, a rainbow of colors and shapes: some were twisted into elegant helixes, some were orbs, translucent, with little swirls of color in the center, some were shaped like jets, or hovercars or the little flowers that they so carefully cultivated in the botanica.

"Don't care."

"I'll pick, then," Wing said, undaunted. He beckoned to the mech on the other side of the case, who produced, eventually, a little white enameled tray, on which were arrayed in some apparently precise arrangement, an assortment of the little candies. He swung around to a table just big enough for the tiny tray. He split one in half, holding a piece out to Drift. Drift glowered, tossing his head, but he knew better than to resist. There was no winning against Wing.

Wing watched him expectantly, until he put the fragment of candy in his mouth. Wing's grin spread, like something sweet melting in Drift's mouth. "Good?"

Drift shrugged, sullen, refusing to give Wing the satisfaction. Because Wing knew what the thing tasted like, knew enough about what Drift was used to, knew enough to know that the confection spread like sweet velvet on his glossa, filling his mouth like the taste of sunshine.

Wing laughed, before taking a long moment to savor his own half of the treat. "I imagine," he said, "you're fomenting some lecture about class and unfairness and how before the war you never saw anything like this."

Drift set his mouth, snatching up the next piece, dividing it with the most ill-grace he could manage and handing half to Wing. This one was white, with some pearlescent glow over it and had a strange tartness to it, feeling almost powdery on his glossa.

"Suppose you're thinking," he said around the mouthful, "that I'm jealous."

"Are you?" Wing took the morsel with a dainty gesture.

Yes. "No."

"I'll have to try harder."

"You want me jealous."

Wing leaned forward, one thumb brushing some of the powdery confection off Drift's lip plates. "I want you to know my City, Drift. Your city, if you'll have it." His gold optics were a handspan from Drift's, his mouth almost daring a kiss.

Drift bridled. "Public." He could feel the gazes of the other patrons on them, studying his alien armor, the Decepticon badge on his chassis.

"No one minds, Drift." He leaned closer, brushing his mouthplates over Drift's, optics lidding to warm golden lines before he pulled away. Drift felt the thrill, tingling and electric, race through his systems, a cascade of current from his mouthplates, setting his whole body ablaze, fanned higher by the almost cheeky grin on Wing's face. "Besides, that's the point of things like this." He gestured to the small tray.

"Kissing." Right. He was never going to understand Wing's logic. Maybe peace had made them all a little crazy.

"Pleasure." Wing said. He bent over, deftly folding the silver tray—a thin sheet of metal, delicate and easily bent—into a small container, the other candies inside, and motioned Drift to follow.

What was he going to do, after all? Stay there alone and feel even more like an idiot? He trailed after Wing, trying to keep his optics from the sleek folds of the other's wingpanels as Wing approached the counter and spoke to the mech behind.

"Never," Wing said, as the mech brought out a small box, with elaborate swirls and swashes on it, "more clearly than this."

"It's a box." A stupid looking box, fragile and nonfunctional.

"It's a box of paints."

Drift rolled his optics, still newly blue. "Maintenance has paints."

Another coy, almost teasing smile. "Not like these." He let the mech scan his chit reader, turning to go. "Come on, and I'll be more than happy to show you."

[***]

Drift grumbled the entire walk back, watching the two parcels swing easily in Wing's hands. This whole thing was stupid, this whole city was stupid. Everything was stupid and unreal.

Except Wing, who was real and beautiful and, at times, Drift's.

But at times like these he was someone almost unknown, the gulf between the worlds they knew seeming almost unbridgeable, an obstacle between them. And Drift could only follow, with some dim faith that they would reconnect.

"Paints," Wing said, with a flourish, laying the decorated box on the berth in his quarters. Drift watched as he opened the box, taking out three small jars of paint—gold, silver, and a sort of prismatic white—and a set of little brushes. Wing uncapped one jar, dipping his finger in, delicately, and holding it out to Drift. "Taste it."

It would taste like paint. But Wing seemed too pleased with himself, so Drift leaned forward, letting the gold brush over his mouthplates, before sending a furtive glossa to lick them clean.

But it didn't—it was sweet and sharp and warm in his mouth. Wing's smile grew, not the closed-off one, but the gentle, including, teasing one, before he licked the rest of the gold paint off his finger, gold optics flirting with Drift.

Drift felt his systems heat, watching the tilted optics, half-lidded with desire, a peek at the glossa flicking over the black metal of Wing's finger, in a neat little gesture. He wanted Wing. Always. It was almost a surprise to him how badly, how desperately, he could want. It was like desire—this kind—was new to him, shivering his frame, teasing some shy, feral thing from the back of his history.

He moved, pulling Wing by the helm, giving the kiss he should have given back in the shop, forceful and long and yearning. Drift felt a gratifying pulse of the jet's aroused EM field under his hand, releasing the kiss with an almost torturous slowness.

"Don't need paint for that," he said, huskily. All Wing had to do was be within range.

Wing's flight panels riffled, and he put a playful hand on Drift's chassis. "Lie down."

"Don't need paint for that, either," Drift murmured, his hands still clinging to the other's frame.

Wing laughed, pushing against Drift's chassis, until Drift relented—with ill grace—and lay back on the berth. Wing crawled up next to him, his face a study of concentration as he picked up one of the small, white-handled brushes and dipped it in the gold paint. He studied Drift for a long moment, tilting his head, before bending over, and drawing a long, swooping swirl on Drift's white spaulder.

Drift shivered, feeling the delicate touch of the brush, its hundreds of tiny, fine fibers licking over his armor, and then the sudden heat along the line Wing drew.

"Heat reactive," he murmured.

Wing nodded, absently, already searching for the next place to draw, mouth worrying the end of the brush for a moment before he traced a series of short little whorls along Drift's wrist. He struggled upward.

"Please," Wing said, his voice soft and formal. "Just lie back. Relax."

Drift lay back, shuttering his optics, blocking out the sight, letting himself feel as Wing traced and drew all over his body, an intricate pattern of gold curves and arches, all tingling and warm, like a network of heat and sensation. It was an effort to relax, to just…be.

Then, suddenly, cold, another network of lines, this time straight, sharp angles and lines. His optics flickered open. Wing grinned, catching his gaze, holding up another brush, this one silver-laden, before bending back to draw a series of hashmarks along Drift's thigh.

"Wing…," he nearly groaned.

"Enjoying it?" Wing asked. A trick question. As if he couldn't enjoy the attention, the sensations washing over his frame.

"I'd think you'd be bored."

Another gentle smile. "No." He reached over to reload his brush. "Has it occurred to you yet, Drift, that one of the greatest pleasures one can have, one of the greatest honors, is to bring pleasure to another?"

It was such a Wing thing to say. Ridiculous, idealistic, hopelessly naïve…and immensely alluring. He'd never realized, never allowed himself to realize this. Never let himself just lie back and enjoy, either. Wing rolled forward, one red-flashed knee near Drift's shoulder, ducking down for quick, urgent kiss, one that allowed Drift to answer without words. He shifted back, surveying Drift's body. "White now, I think."

"What's that one do?"

"You'll see," Wing said, hiding his smile as he turned.

The white, pearly paint seemed to be…nothing at all, Drift thought, lying there, feeling only the cool gentle lick of the brush, describing tiny dots and circles over his armor. Which was more than maddening enough in its own right.

"There," Wing said, at last. He recapped the last jar, dropping the brushes in a small compartment to be cleaned, later, and tugging Drift to his feet. Drift…did not want to be on his feet, he wanted to lie there, limp, luxuriating in the exquisite battle of heat and cold over his armor. But Wing dragged him over, relentlessly, to a mirror, where he saw his armor transformed, a complicated interlace of the metallic swirls and lines. He looked….

"…beautiful," Wing breathed, folding his arms around Drift from behind, nestling his face by the other's neck. "Then again," Wing murmured, the words vibrating into Drift's throat cabling, "you've always been beautiful. You just never looked."

This was harder to deal with than he'd ever have thought, Wing's constant, almost relentless, faith and kindness.

Which he didn't deserve. But he could forget about that, at times, burying it under touch, sensation, need.

He turned, in the jet's arms, wanting nothing more than to feel Wing's mouth on his. Wing put up a finger between them, resting lightly on Drift's lower lip, and stepped back. "I haven't shown you the third paint yet."

Drift shrugged. He didn't care. He just wanted Wing, in all his plush, beautiful, elegant, enigmatic aliveness, but Wing, being Wing, had his way, slipping deftly out of Drift's embrace, tilting his helm down to look at Drift from under its heavy crest.

"Let me show you," Wing said, and there was something irresistible in the eagerness in his voice. Drift stopped, yielding. Wing gave a triumphant wiggle, and then leaned over, finding one of the prismatic white circles on Drift's inner elbow and then moving, slowly, mouth parted, to touch the circle with his glossa.

Drift gasped as the glossa made contact, somehow—he didn't know the science of it and he didn't, at the moment, care—igniting the circle, and all the other white circles and spirals over his body, in some sort of almost…he couldn't even describe it…musical, tingling pleasure. His servos almost buckled, Wing having to brace him with his arms to keep Drift standing.

Wing purred, lowering him to the ground, the two of them kneeling, letting Drift's arms wrap over his shoulders, Drift's mouth, searching and desperate, join his. It was almost on the edge of too much, almost in the hinterlands of pain, the heat and cold and the almost throbbing waves of pleasure from the paints.

"Like this," Wing whispered, brushing his fingers over the circles, as though playing a fine instrument, his own vents coming sharp and ragged as Drift moaned and twitched under his touch.

"Wing," Drift managed to choke out, his own hands clinging almost franticly to Wing's body.

"Yes," Wing said, the only word that needed to be said between them.

Drift couldn't respond, his entire body fluttering and trembling with desire, the overload building, not from his interface systems, but from his entire body, his whole frame a network of shimmering want, charge building up in the painted circles, cresting until he could no longer stand it, throwing his head back, almost weeping with release. Charge flared and flickered over his body, blue white and painfully sweet, sweetly painful, as Wing caught him up in his arms, before the overload toppled him onto his back, pressing his mouth on Drift's in a kiss that belied his earlier teasing aloofness. It was one thing to feel selfish, wrapped in pleasure, another to realize that your desire, your responses, gratified someone else. He could do nothing but accept the kiss, hungry and fierce, fingers clinging almost limply to Wing's shoulders.

Wing pulled away, after a lingering moment, both of them just wrapped, rapt, in their mutual desire, and the teasing smirk was already curving over his lip plates. "Not just paint," he said, his optics giving him away, glowing gold and liquid.

Drift looked down at his body, the elegant lines intact, mapping out some topography of need he couldn't read. "…now?"

The grin brightened, the optics getting a coy glint. "Now," Wing said, turning his face to one of Drift's forearms, and flicking out his glossa to touch the line of paint, "we clean you off."

Drift looked down the front of his frame, the complicated linework. "Going to take you a while." He shuddered, the glossa on the gold paint sending shockwaves of sensation through him.

"Best," Wing said, one hand on Drift's shoulder, pushing him back against the floor, moving to kiss Drift's throat, turning Drift's face to the mirror, where he could see this, all of this, the jet kneeling and purring over him, taut with desire, "get to work then."


End file.
